<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-us">
  <head>

    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Finding Multiple Exact Values | Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide [2.x] | Elastic</title>
<link rel="home" href="index.html" title="Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide [2.x]">
<link rel="up" href="structured-search.html" title="Structured Search">
<link rel="prev" href="combining-filters.html" title="Combining Filters">
<link rel="next" href="_ranges.html" title="Ranges">
<meta name="DC.type" content="Learn/Docs/Legacy/Elasticsearch/Definitive Guide/2.x">
<meta name="DC.subject" content="Elasticsearch">
<meta name="DC.identifier" content="2.x">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <script src="https://cdn.optimizely.com/js/18132920325.js"></script>
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="/apple-icon-57x57.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="60x60" href="/apple-icon-60x60.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="/apple-icon-72x72.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="/apple-icon-76x76.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="/apple-icon-114x114.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="/apple-icon-120x120.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="/apple-icon-144x144.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="/apple-icon-152x152.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-icon-180x180.png">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/android-chrome-192x192.png" sizes="192x192">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16">
    <link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json">
    <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-title" content="Elastic">
    <meta name="application-name" content="Elastic">
    <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#ffffff">
    <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="/mstile-144x144.png">
    <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff">
    <meta name="naver-site-verification" content="936882c1853b701b3cef3721758d80535413dbfd">
    <meta name="yandex-verification" content="d8a47e95d0972434">
    <meta name="localized" content="true">
    <meta name="st:robots" content="follow,index">
    <meta property="og:image" content="https://www.elastic.co/static/images/elastic-logo-200.png">
    <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
    <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="64x64" href="/favicon_64x64_16bit.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon_32x32.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon_16x16.png">
    <!-- Give IE8 a fighting chance -->
    <!--[if lt IE 9]>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script>
    <![endif]-->
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/guide/static/styles.css">
  </head>

  <!--© 2015-2021 Elasticsearch B.V. Copying, publishing and/or distributing without written permission is strictly prohibited.-->

  <body>
    <!-- Google Tag Manager -->
    <script>dataLayer = [];</script><noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-58RLH5" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>
    <script>(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start': new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src= '//www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f); })(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-58RLH5');</script>
    <!-- End Google Tag Manager -->

    <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
    <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-12395217-16"></script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'UA-12395217-16');
    </script>

    <!--BEGIN QUALTRICS WEBSITE FEEDBACK SNIPPET-->
    <script type="text/javascript">
      (function(){var g=function(e,h,f,g){
      this.get=function(a){for(var a=a+"=",c=document.cookie.split(";"),b=0,e=c.length;b<e;b++){for(var d=c[b];" "==d.charAt(0);)d=d.substring(1,d.length);if(0==d.indexOf(a))return d.substring(a.length,d.length)}return null};
      this.set=function(a,c){var b="",b=new Date;b.setTime(b.getTime()+6048E5);b="; expires="+b.toGMTString();document.cookie=a+"="+c+b+"; path=/; "};
      this.check=function(){var a=this.get(f);if(a)a=a.split(":");else if(100!=e)"v"==h&&(e=Math.random()>=e/100?0:100),a=[h,e,0],this.set(f,a.join(":"));else return!0;var c=a[1];if(100==c)return!0;switch(a[0]){case "v":return!1;case "r":return c=a[2]%Math.floor(100/c),a[2]++,this.set(f,a.join(":")),!c}return!0};
      this.go=function(){if(this.check()){var a=document.createElement("script");a.type="text/javascript";a.src=g;document.body&&document.body.appendChild(a)}};
      this.start=function(){var a=this;window.addEventListener?window.addEventListener("load",function(){a.go()},!1):window.attachEvent&&window.attachEvent("onload",function(){a.go()})}};
      try{(new g(100,"r","QSI_S_ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF","https://znemkp0ose9qrn7kf-elastic.siteintercept.qualtrics.com/WRSiteInterceptEngine/?Q_ZID=ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF")).start()}catch(i){}})();
    </script><div id="ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF"><!--DO NOT REMOVE-CONTENTS PLACED HERE--></div>
    <!--END WEBSITE FEEDBACK SNIPPET-->

    <div id="elastic-nav" style="display:none;"></div>
    <script src="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-nav.js"></script>

    <!-- Subnav -->
    <div>
      <div>
        <div class="tertiary-nav d-none d-md-block">
          <div class="container">
            <div class="p-t-b-15 d-flex justify-content-between nav-container">
              <div class="breadcrum-wrapper"><span><a href="/guide/" style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: 600; color: #000;">Docs</a></span></div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>

    <div class="main-container">
      <section id="content">
        <div class="content-wrapper">

          <section id="guide" lang="en">
            <div class="container">
              <div class="row">
                <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-8 col-md-8 guide-section">
                  <!-- start body -->
                  <div class="page_header">
<p>
  <strong>WARNING</strong>: The 2.x versions of Elasticsearch have passed their
  <a href="https://www.elastic.co/support/eol">EOL dates</a>. If you are running
  a 2.x version, we strongly advise you to upgrade.
</p>
<p>
  This documentation is no longer maintained and may be removed. For the latest
  information, see the <a href="https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/index.html">current
  Elasticsearch documentation</a>.
</p>
</div>
<div id="content">
<div class="breadcrumbs">
<span class="breadcrumb-link"><a href="index.html">Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide [2.x]</a></span>
»
<span class="breadcrumb-link"><a href="search-in-depth.html">Search in Depth</a></span>
»
<span class="breadcrumb-link"><a href="structured-search.html">Structured Search</a></span>
»
<span class="breadcrumb-node">Finding Multiple Exact Values</span>
</div>
<div class="navheader">
<span class="prev">
<a href="combining-filters.html">« Combining Filters</a>
</span>
<span class="next">
<a href="_ranges.html">Ranges »</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h2 class="title">
<a id="_finding_multiple_exact_values"></a>Finding Multiple Exact Values<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-definitive-guide/edit/2.x/080_Structured_Search/15_terms.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h2>
</div></div></div>
<p>The <code class="literal">term</code> query is useful for finding a single value, but often you’ll  want
to search for multiple values.
  What if you want to
find documents that have a price of $20 or $30?</p>
<p>Rather than using multiple <code class="literal">term</code> queries, you can instead use a single <code class="literal">terms</code>
query (note the <em>s</em> at the end).  The <code class="literal">terms</code> query is simply the plural
version of the singular <code class="literal">term</code> query cousin.</p>
<p>It looks nearly identical to a vanilla <code class="literal">term</code> too.  Instead of
specifying a single price, we are now specifying an array of values:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-js">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-js">{
    "terms" : {
        "price" : [20, 30]
    }
}</pre>
</div>
<p>And like the <code class="literal">term</code> query, we will place it inside the <code class="literal">filter</code> clause of a
constant score query to use it:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">GET /my_store/products/_search
{
    "query" : {
        "constant_score" : {
            "filter" : {
                "terms" : { <a id="CO49-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
                    "price" : [20, 30]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/080_Structured_Search/15_Terms_filter.json"></div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO49-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>The <code class="literal">terms</code> query as seen previously, but placed inside the <code class="literal">constant_score</code> query</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>The query will return the second, third, and fourth documents:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-json">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-json">"hits" : [
    {
        "_id" :    "2",
        "_score" : 1.0,
        "_source" : {
          "price" :     20,
          "productID" : "KDKE-B-9947-#kL5"
        }
    },
    {
        "_id" :    "3",
        "_score" : 1.0,
        "_source" : {
          "price" :     30,
          "productID" : "JODL-X-1937-#pV7"
        }
    },
    {
        "_id":     "4",
        "_score":  1.0,
        "_source": {
           "price":     30,
           "productID": "QQPX-R-3956-#aD8"
        }
     }
]</pre>
</div>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h3 class="title">
<a id="_contains_but_does_not_equal"></a>Contains, but Does Not Equal<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-definitive-guide/edit/2.x/080_Structured_Search/20_contains.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
</div></div></div>
<p>It is important to understand that <code class="literal">term</code> and <code class="literal">terms</code> are <em>contains</em> operations,
not <em>equals</em>.

What does that mean?</p>
<p>If you have a term query for <code class="literal">{ "term" : { "tags" : "search" } }</code>, it will match
<em>both</em> of the following documents:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-js">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-js">{ "tags" : ["search"] }
{ "tags" : ["search", "open_source"] } <a id="CO50-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></pre>
</div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO50-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>This document is returned, even though it has terms other than <code class="literal">search</code>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>Recall how the <code class="literal">term</code> query works: it checks the inverted index for all
documents that contain a term, and then constructs a bitset.  In our simple
example, we have the following inverted index:</p>
<div class="informaltable">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4px" width="50%">
<colgroup>
<col class="col_1">
<col class="col_2">
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p>Token</p></td>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p>DocIDs</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p><code class="literal">open_source</code></p></td>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p><code class="literal">2</code></p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p><code class="literal">search</code></p></td>
<td align="left" valign="top"><p><code class="literal">1</code>,<code class="literal">2</code></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>When a <code class="literal">term</code> query is executed for the token <code class="literal">search</code>, it goes straight to the
corresponding entry in the inverted index and extracts the associated doc IDs.
As you can see, both document 1 and document 2 contain the token in the inverted index.
Therefore, they are both returned as a result.</p>
<div class="note admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>The nature of an inverted index also means that entire field equality is rather
difficult to calculate.  How would you determine whether a particular document
contains <em>only</em> your request term?  You would have to find the term in
the inverted index, extract the document IDs, and then scan <em>every row in the
inverted index</em>, looking for those IDs to see whether a doc has any other terms.</p>
<p>As you might imagine, that would be tremendously inefficient and expensive.
For that reason, <code class="literal">term</code> and <code class="literal">terms</code> are <em>must contain</em> operations, not
<em>must equal exactly</em>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h3 class="title">
<a id="_equals_exactly"></a>Equals Exactly<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-definitive-guide/edit/2.x/080_Structured_Search/20_contains.asciidoc">edit</a>
</h3>
</div></div></div>
<p>If you do want that behavior—​entire field equality—​the best way to
accomplish it involves indexing a secondary field.
In this field, you index the number of values that your field contains.  Using
our two previous documents, we now include a field that maintains the number of tags:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">{ "tags" : ["search"], "tag_count" : 1 }
{ "tags" : ["search", "open_source"], "tag_count" : 2 }</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/080_Structured_Search/20_Exact.json"></div>
<p>Once you have the count information indexed, you can construct a <code class="literal">constant_score</code>
that enforces the appropriate number of terms:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sense">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sense">GET /my_index/my_type/_search
{
    "query": {
        "constant_score" : {
            "filter" : {
                 "bool" : {
                    "must" : [
                        { "term" : { "tags" : "search" } }, <a id="CO51-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>
                        { "term" : { "tag_count" : 1 } } <a id="CO51-2"></a><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i>
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="sense_widget" data-snippet="snippets/080_Structured_Search/20_Exact.json"></div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO51-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>Find all documents that have the term <code class="literal">search</code>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO51-2"><i class="conum" data-value="2"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>But make sure the document has only one tag.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>This query will now match only the document that has a single tag that is
<code class="literal">search</code>, rather than any document that contains <code class="literal">search</code>.</p>
</div>

</div>
<div class="navfooter">
<span class="prev">
<a href="combining-filters.html">« Combining Filters</a>
</span>
<span class="next">
<a href="_ranges.html">Ranges »</a>
</span>
</div>
</div>

                  <!-- end body -->
                </div>
                <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-4 col-md-4" id="right_col">
                  <div id="rtpcontainer" style="display: block;">
                    <div class="mktg-promo">
                      <h3>Most Popular</h3>
                      <ul class="icons">
                        <li class="icon-elasticsearch-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/getting-started-elasticsearch?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">Get Started with Elasticsearch: Video</a></li>
                        <li class="icon-kibana-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/getting-started-kibana?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">Intro to Kibana: Video</a></li>
                        <li class="icon-logstash-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/introduction-elk-stack?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">ELK for Logs &amp; Metrics: Video</a></li>
                      </ul>
                    </div>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </div>
            </div>
          </section>

        </div>


<div id="elastic-footer"></div>
<script src="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-footer.js"></script>
<!-- Footer Section end-->

      </section>
    </div>

<script src="/guide/static/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/guide/static/docs.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  window.initial_state = {}</script>
  </body>
</html>
